


Hey There, Demons

by IneffableAlien



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Comedy, Creepypasta, Horror, M/M, Memes, Paranormal, Short One Shot, Surprise Ending, This Is STUPID, coronavirus joke, exploring abandoned places, hey there demons it's me ya boy, omg they were investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23167588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableAlien/pseuds/IneffableAlien
Summary: Married paranormal investigators Azra and Crowley explore an abandoned asylum.  It goes about as well as you might expect.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 54





	Hey There, Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this brief interruption before I write the next chapter of my high school AU/Mean Girls fusion [Fetch Omens](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22784470/chapters/54446533).
> 
> This is for fellow server mod @Darq (plant daddy)! They aren't on AO3, but this is still partially their fault! :D
> 
> _Can you figure out where these places are that Crowley and Azra have investigated?_

“Hey there, demons … it’s me, ya boy.”

Azra pursed his lips and released an amused little huff of air. He could gather from Crowley’s flamboyant cadence of speech that he was referencing something, one of his _memes,_ no doubt. (Incidentally, Crowley and Azra had a longstanding feud regarding the pronunciation of the word “meme.” Azra maintained that, whether or not it was a real word at all, it clearly held roots in the Ancient Greek _mímēma_ and thus must be pronounced _“me-me.”_ Crowley insisted it was pronounced _“meem,”_ on the grounds that _“me-me”_ sounded stupid.1)

The pair were fathoms-deep within an abandoned psychiatric hospital, which had been established in the 1900s, and closed by the early ‘90s due to tragic scandals revolving around claims of mistreatment of patients. If early urban explorers to the site had trod respectfully, the same could not be said of whoever had trashed the place in more recent decades. Its once glorious halls were in irreparable ruin, graffiti covered graffiti on every surface, and the surrounding woods were swamped with broken beer bottles and crunched cigarettes.

But the ancient asylum had acquired a new claim to fame: the people in town now insisted that Satanic rituals were being performed there.

Azra noticed that the green screen of his handheld electromagnetic radiation meter was fading in and out. He frowned. Of course it was, he had yet again forgotten to switch out the batteries. Why did Crowley ever leave him in charge of any electronics? He tried to give the device a good _thwack_ without Crowley noticing. Not that it mattered … he knew that he and Crowley were about to “find” what they were seeking regardless of what little tools they had.

It wasn’t as though Azra got off on tricking his husband and fellow paranormal investigator, Anthony J. Crowley (Crowley had always preferred to go by his last name, and Azra had always respected that without question). Azra was only motivated by love. It warmed his heart to see Crowley’s face light up like a child’s every time he discovered something “spooky,” and it devastated Azra to read the disappointment written across those perfect cheekbones when he didn’t.

The problem was, whenever it was Crowley’s turn to plan the next excursion, he would inevitably choose something _ridiculous._

Demons? Seriously? Azra winced to watch Crowley stalk the slimy bricks of the morgue buried beneath the ground floor. All of the slabs had long since been stolen. Azra could barely make out the color of the metal underneath the countless names and symbols spray-painted across every locker. And many symbols were occult in nature, but Azra chalked that up to teenagers wanting to be shocking. Crowley looked painfully sincere; he really believed in all this stuff.

Azra liked to think that his approach investigating was greatly pragmatic by contrast. The things Azra considered to be real made _sense._ For example, when he and Crowley had camped out in that beautiful bookshop built in 1745 in the heart of the historic district, of course it had turned out to be truly haunted. Azra knew ghosts were real, they were projections of heightened energy, and energy was just _science._ Azra sighed wistfully, imagining how much energy from the pure adoration of literature alone had accumulated in one of the oldest continuously operating bookshops in the world.

Azra’s sole regret from that night was that the specter had failed to appear until after Crowley stepped out to go to the bathroom. He’d missed the whole thing.

 _3, 2, 1 …_ Azra thought to himself.

 _“You shouldn’t beeee here,”_ echoed a distorted voice, rumbling in a way far too ugly to call a purr. Even though Azra had been expecting it, both jumped with terror.

 _Gosh,_ thought Azra, once his heart had settled, _impressive work, Anathema!_ He wondered where she had stashed the speaker.

“Oh, my Go— _hnngh,”_ Crowley choked out.

Azra stepped in front of Crowley, who no longer seemed to be able to close his mouth. “Now you listen here, you foul fiend,” Azra announced to the cold, damp room haughtily.

“Azra,” Crowley hissed, “what do you think you’re—”

“Demon or no,” Azra continued, ignoring Crowley at this point, “I simply have no intention of standing idly by while you address my husband in such a disrespectful tone!”

There was a pause, that hung heavy on the stale air, just long enough for Azra to feel the fine hairs bristle on the back of his neck. He was surprised to feel afraid.

Finally, the voice spoke, sounding louder, and somehow closer, although they were still alone. _“He blends in well with the trees,”_ it said. It had the slightest lilt, less singing than merely hinting at the memory of a song. _“And in the fog he’s hard to see …”_

 _Geez, Anathema,_ thought Azra. She was going way off-book. Azra reached behind to grasp Crowley’s hand reassuringly, and worried at how clammy it was. This had gone too beyond spooky to be enjoyable to anyone. Azra fumbled inside his pocket with his other hand and tilted the light of his phone to where he could look down and see. He intended to text Anathema and tell her to lighten up a little, when he saw that he had missed a message from her.

**I’m so sorry!! I tried to make it but Newt got sick, I stg if he gives me corona I’m getting a divorce**

Azra felt the blood drain from his face.

 _“He’s dressed in darkest suit and tie,”_ the voice said, growl-singing in a way that needled Azra’s eardrums, _“and you most certainly will die.”_

__

__

_“Angel,”_ Crowley gasped like he had been struggling to breathe. He was pointing at a corner so black that it seemed to devour all light that touched its shadow edges. Had it been like that a second ago? Azra wondered. The darkness _looked_ like a sound, and that sound was the words you hear in the innocuous white noise of a box fan, the moment that it betrays you—because you expected that to make it more difficult to hear the thing in your room right before you fall asleep, not less.

Azra’s eyes were playing tricks on him. Surely the darkness couldn’t be expanding like that, bleeding, casting ropes of velvet to either side—ropes, or …

“Tentacles?” Azra whispered, frozen in place.

Crowley dug his fingers into the meat of Azra’s upper arm so hard there’d surely be bruising tomorrow, more or less dragging him out of the morgue depths. They ran up the subterranean corridor until they reached the steps to the ground floor, and they didn’t look back until they were well out of view in Crowley’s car.

They couldn’t have flown out faster if they’d had wings.

Two figures defied gravity in the corner, perching weightlessly on top of an extended roller rack from one of the wall lockers. The first thing might have been a man, if only it had a face.

Somehow it took a swig from its beer anyway.

“Really?” it said snarkily to the thing next to it, a humanoid figure stitched together out of a material not unlike white burlap sacks. “I fucking hate that song.”

“It gets ‘em every time, though,” laughed the cloth thing. It was eating popcorn.

Be careful where you poke around, dear reader. Maybe Azra’s right—maybe there is no such thing as demons. But maybe there are even worse things out there, and perhaps it was for the best that our idiotic heroes never learned the names “Slender Man” and “Candle Jack.” If they had

**Author's Note:**

> 1 [Crowley was right](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-41163774), but you already knew that.
> 
> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


End file.
